A Frozen Frenzy

My oldest turned six this month and chose to celebrate with a “Frozen” themed party with her friends. I have to admit I am a sucker for party planning. I get caught up in the tiniest of details and always bite off far more than can be realistically accomplished by any one person.

For the past five years every party that I’ve thrown has gone down basically the same way. I start shopping, planning and prepping months in advance. Thanks to Pinterest, vision boards are assembled and curated even upwards of half a year before the big day. I can’t help myself. There are just too many fabulous ideas out there not to delight in the details. So many super moms throwing fabulous fiestas and providing ample inspiration to fuel my own.

I inevitably go well beyond my original budget since I manage to stumble across the perfect pieces along the way. I stay up far too late the night before trying to ready myself and then somehow still manage to be running around in a fluster when guests arrive.

This year however was different. I was actually ready and had half an hour to spare before guests knocked on the door. This year instead of our usual 30 odd guests that consisted of aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and our favourite little ones, my daughter handpicked 6 little friends that would join her for the festivities, and that was it.

Phew! This meant for the first time there would be no adults to entertain. No abundance of food to prep and serve. No guilt to feel over not talking to everyone as I remained distracted by entertaining kids and adults alike. I could finally keep it simple. I could focus solely on spoiling six sweet little girls and ensuring my precious birthday girl had a day to remember. Yay!

The concept was simple. Invite friends to watch the movie “Frozen” in the comfort of our home. With a big screen t.v. and the couches positioned in a single row across the room the girls could sit side by side just like in a real theatre. The big difference being they could hop up to dance around and belt out all the words to their favourite songs which they did emphatically throughout the entire movie. It was adorable.

A delicate tissue paper garland strung across the mantel in shades of cool blues and royal gold resembled dangling icicles, while hand cut paper snowflakes hung overhead set the wintry scene in our homemade theatre.

I served up air popped popcorn during the show which was served in sweet little white patterned pails that I scooped from the dollar section at Target. The delicate cutouts reminded me of snowflakes and would help set the wintry scene I was going for.

After the movie the girls enjoyed a simple lunch of macaroni and cheese. You could certainly make homemade but I opted for easy once again and served up out of the box white mac n’ cheese, a personal favourite. On the table were cute little icy blue buckets (Target) filled with snowman parts – carrot noses, pretzel arms, and Bocconcini cheese balls for bodies – the perfect side for lunch.

And icy blue jello served up in tiny plastic stemmed cups, from the local Dollar Store, that made the girls feel extra fancy.

After lunch we worked on a fun “Olaf” inspired craft I pulled together. Gathering up supplies from the local Dollar Store I preassembled the snowman parts into kits for each girl and placed them in these cute little favour boxes, found in Target’s party section. The blue and purply pink were the perfect colours resembling Anna and Elsa’s dresses.

I actually found clearance placemats at Target in the same colours (89 cents – what!) and snatched those up too, laying down the centre of my table as a runner. I used doilies under each place setting carrying through the snowflake theme and gave each girl a pretty pink crown (Target) so they could feel like a princess or queen for day, just like Anna and Elsa.

For favour bags I included a Frozen sticker activity book (Target) and a rock candy lollipop that looked just like ice (Party City). With their crowns and crafts tossed in before they left it made a great take home for each girl. Using brown paper kraft bags (from The Dollar Store) I stamped each girl’s name onto the bag and cutout a snowflake shape using a (Martha Stewart) snowflake punch from Michael’s, then trimmed each bag with an icy blue tissue paper tassel.

When I set out planning this Frozen themed party it turned out to be quite a drought in the shops when it came to sourcing actual Frozen paraphernalia. Every store was sold out of nearly everything, even simple details like party napkins. I decided to run with a wintry theme and used the icy blue and purply pink colours as my colour scheme and it turned out just perfect.

It was a fantastic celebration for our sweet girl and a super fun party to put together.